Video freezes during playback

[Doonga 17]

Been trying to capture this one for some time and I think I finally got it. I have a Fire TV at a remote location where the internet isn't very good. At best there's 3mbits download and usually less than that and it tends to fluctuate a bit. It seems that when the available bandwidth drops the movie will freeze for a second (expected) but then it won't resume (not expected.) 

 

I have the bitrate set to Auto, but even when I have it set to something very low like 1mbit I'll get this same behavior.

 

Attached is the server log and transcode log. I was tailing the server log while it happens and it looks like the client requested a lower bitrate but then was unable to use it and got into a weird state and froze. (Just guessing here.)

 

The user playing the movie is Andy, started around 11:55ish and I copied the log off right after it happened.

 

The Fire TV itself isn't under my account so it's not in the open beta.

server-63598814794.zip

transcode-693fd141-c4c0-4f1d-bf9e-b822b7bdd8f1.zip

[ebr 16169]

By "freeze" you just mean the video freezes - the app is still responsive, correct?

[Doonga 17]

Yes, sorry, the video freezes. I can back out of the video and pick back up where it stopped playing. It probably did that about 8 times while watching that movie.

Edited May 15, 2016 by Doonga

[ebr 16169]

I think the connection to the server is being completely interrupted and the server thinks the client has quit or gone away.

[Doonga 17]

That's certainly possible, it's definitely not the most stable internet. Would it be possible to get it to recover more gracefully? Just for comparison, Plex will occasionally say something along the lines of "your connection to the server was interrupted" but then a second or two later it will pick back up. I know that Emby isn't Plex, but this ends up being a WAF type issue. I'd like to get my remote users off Plex but this causes grief.... Ugh.

[ebr 16169]

How long have you waited with the video frozen?  I don't think an error is occurring on the app side because I believe it would go back to the detail screen if it were.  Its possible that the timeout in VLC is quite long before it generates an error.

 

If you can make the problem occur and then send a log with the app, I can check and confirm though.  Thanks.

[Doonga 17]

I usually only give it about 30 seconds or so. I won't be able to test until next weekend but I'll try letting it sit for a few minutes and see if it ever recovers and send a log if it doesn't.

[Doonga 17]

I had this happen again. I let it sit there for a good 2 minutes. During that time I was watching the logs and it Fire TV was posting playing progress updates to the server every 3 seconds, but the video was frozen and never recovered.

 

This is still on 1.1.90a. I don't have control of the Amazon account the Fire TV is on so I can't get it in beta. Maybe with the update to VLC in the newer version things will be better?

[ebr 16169]

Did you send a log with the app?

[Doonga 17]

Shoot I forgot to do that. I will next time and a new set of server logs.

[Doonga 17]

Finally got it to do it. As far as I know the internet didn't actually drop out since I have a persistent connection going between the remote location and my server and that didn't break.

 

I uploaded logs from the Fire TV around 2:33PM(ish.) Also attached is the server log from the same time and the transcode logs. It appears a new one was created right around the same time the video froze.

 

Thanks as always for your help!

transcode-19097e60-72ce-440a-a711-669de6796451.zip

transcode-71ad55c2-57ca-4602-a0d1-709550ac1ded.zip

server-63599507810.zip

Edited May 22, 2016 by Doonga

[ebr 16169]

As I had suspected, it doesn't appear that the app is being notified of any error by the player.  The app is just going along happily reporting progress while the player has frozen up.

 

The log was too long for me to confirm but is this playing in VLC?

[Doonga 17]

I can check. How would I tell?

[Doonga 17]

2016-05-22 16:36:34.0673 Info HttpServer: HTTP GET https://XXXXXX:8920/emby/videos/2a3cf50162def31ae32c06e2b185c047/stream.mkv?DeviceId=95322fd3c8abc31d&MediaSourceId=2a3cf50162def31ae32c06e2b185c047&VideoCodec=h264&AudioCodec=aac&AudioStreamIndex=1&VideoBitrate=1202562&AudioBitrate=128000&MaxAudioChannels=2&StartTimeTicks=42529160000&Level=41&Profile=high&PlaySessionId=0a76d978070942c481f9b6350980c015&CopyTimestamps=true&ForceLiveStream=false. UserAgent: EMVideoView 2.5.6 (25600) / Android 5.1 / AFTB

 

I think that's how I tell? I would say it was not using VLC. I'm comparing it to the line below which is a completely unrelated line, but I see a LibVLC user agent there, so I'm going to assume the one above was not.

 

2016-05-21 09:44:11.8473 Info HttpServer: HTTP GET https://XXXXXX:8920/videos/8dadcda718d9ef29e3f4384a0626705f/stream.mkv?DeviceId=ffe56e34fd01e8c7&MediaSourceId=6a5f7c0c3eb243fea09b6001625d61bcnative&VideoCodec=h264&AudioCodec=mp3&AudioStreamIndex=-1&VideoBitrate=1680000&AudioBitrate=320000&MaxAudioChannels=6&Level=41&Profile=high&PlaySessionId=a7de5e8fe8214bc4bc9c81b68e8c1095&CopyTimestamps=false&ForceLiveStream=false. UserAgent: VLC/3.0.0-git LibVLC/3.0.0-git

Edited May 23, 2016 by Doonga

[ebr 16169]

Actually, you can tell easier by looking at the OSD during playback .  It will say something like "Trans/I" or "Direct/V".

 

But, that seems to show that it is playing in the internal player.

 

If you turn off the option to bitstream audio, does it work?

[Doonga 17]

Oh! That's what /I and /V are! It was Trans/I for sure.

 

Anyway... It was set to downmix to stereo since the TV it's hooked up to won't play audio with the other option.

[ebr 16169]

But isn't there also an option below that to bitstream audio?  Is it turned off?

[ebr 16169]

Oh, wait - you're still running .90 on this box, right?

 

The beta may improve this as well as it will allow the use of VLC with your transcoded stream.

[Doonga 17]

Yea it's .90 still. Will definitely keep an eye on it once we can watch some stuff with the beta version.

 

Thanks!

[Doonga 17]

Emby is on .96 on the Fire TV now, but it's still using the internal player for the streams. Bit streaming audio is off. Still seeing this issue. 

[ebr 16169]

Emby is on .96 on the Fire TV now, but it's still using the internal player for the streams. Bit streaming audio is off. Still seeing this issue. 

 

Yeah, unfortunately, we had to back off on using VLC for transcoded streams because we could no longer reliably seek them.

[Doonga 17]

Bummer... Well hopefully somewhere along the line it'll work itself out. It hasn't been as bad lately at least.